"War is always going to be bad, so why bother to try and civilize it at all?" Wut? O.K. then, I guess since people die anyway, let's not bother with doctors! Since there are always going to be poor people, why bother with charity?

You're projecting, not arguing.Argue against what I say, not what you're TRYING TO MAKE ME say.

*snipped preaching*

No system will ever be perfect, least of all war, but if we stop trying to improve things, what's the point? Giving up because things can't be 100% how we want is the attitude I expect from a stroppy teenager, and not the kind we should approach serious matters like war from.

I never ONCE advocated stopping progress towards peace, if that's what you're trying to imply.

But what you're talking about does not in any way apply to "war". You cannot civilize war.War is the most base, brutal social activity there is. By trying to civilize war, YOU CONTRADICT ITS DEFINITION.

What you're advocating is "police work" or "Policing".

WAR AND POLICING ARE NOT THE SAME THING.I REPEAT.THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. VERY DIFFERENT MENTALITIES APPLY TO BOTH.

WAR HAS NO RULES OF LAW. NONE. ZERO. EMPLOY MEANS AVAILABLE, KILL OPPOSITION UNTIL THEY ARE DEFEATED. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR WELFARE, THAT'S WHY THEY'RE TRYING TO FUCKING KILL YOU.YOU CAN NO MORE CHANGE THIS FUNDAMENTAL IDENTITY OF WAR THAN YOU CAN CONVINCE AND ANT COLONY THE SAME.

POLICING CARES ABOUT RULES AND LAW FOREMOST. POLICING IS ABOUT MAINTAINING ORDER AND PEACE. POLICING DOES *NOT* IMPLY NON-LETHAL MEASURES. OCCUPATIONS ARE AGGRESSIVE FORMS OF POLICE ACTION. POLICE-STATES ARE THE SAME.

(incidentally, this is why I find the term "War Crimes" grossly inappropriate; an oxymoron)

The horrifying weaponry created and employed in both world wars is something we choose not to employ again, because of the long term impacts on our environment and people as a whole.

That is good. It's wonderful.

Similarly, choosing not to eradicate an enemy's people out of convenience and "security" is an ethical step forward.

These are all STEPS AWAY FROM WAR. Not COMBAT. WAR. There is a difference.

This is why I find "Illegal Invasion" silly beyond comparison, because invasions are the first step in warfare (though on reflection policing may involve invasions too, like a SWAT team entering a building. However, that wasn't the context the original post I quoted used it in).

"Combat" and "War" are strongly related, but not implicitly identical.I've seen real life combat occur in my city. Does that make my city a warzone?Of course not! That's ludicrous.

If you still have personal grievances about this and care about it, PM me.

Atmos Duality, your definition of war is incorrect by the common understanding (also, you obviously feel strongly about these issues and I see how some of his attitude and his expecting you to answer quickly would irk you, but caps lock and swearing do not make your points stronger either).

dictionary.reference.com/browse/war1. a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air. 2. a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations: The two nations were at war with each other. 3. a contest carried on by force of arms, as in a series of battles or campaigns: the War of 1812.

It goes on, becoming more and more abstract:(4. active hostility or contention; conflict; contest: a war of words. 5. aggressive business conflict, as through severe price cutting in the same industry or any other means of undermining competitors: a fare war among airlines; a trade war between nations., but the above definition sees the greatest frequency of usage and is what the abstract definitions are derived from.)

Then it delves into verbs and adjectives with mostly derivative meanings and the German origin of the word meaning 'strife'.

If your personal opinion is that war is unrestricted and that any semblance of order at all defines it as police action then do your democratic bit change this term to your understanding in the common parlance, but you'll keep running into a different understanding. As for WW2 there are thousands of recorded instances of even the Nazis restricting themselves. I guess you could divide WW2 into millions of little 'war' and 'police action' subdivisions, but you'll be considered somewhat silly on this particular point by most historians and linguists.

War is a wide term, even when restricted to its high frequency definitions above (1-3) of which the latter definitions are derived, whether it fits your ideological understanding of the common lexical register or not.

"War is always going to be bad, so why bother to try and civilize it at all?" Wut? O.K. then, I guess since people die anyway, let's not bother with doctors! Since there are always going to be poor people, why bother with charity?

You're projecting, not arguing.Argue against what I say, not what you're TRYING TO MAKE ME say.

*snipped preaching*

No system will ever be perfect, least of all war, but if we stop trying to improve things, what's the point? Giving up because things can't be 100% how we want is the attitude I expect from a stroppy teenager, and not the kind we should approach serious matters like war from.

I never ONCE advocated stopping progress towards peace, if that's what you're trying to imply.

But what you're talking about does not in any way apply to "war". You cannot civilize war.War is the most base, brutal social activity there is. By trying to civilize war, YOU CONTRADICT ITS DEFINITION.

What you're advocating is "police work" or "Policing".

WAR AND POLICING ARE NOT THE SAME THING.I REPEAT.THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. VERY DIFFERENT MENTALITIES APPLY TO BOTH.

WAR HAS NO RULES OF LAW. NONE. ZERO. EMPLOY MEANS AVAILABLE, KILL OPPOSITION UNTIL THEY ARE DEFEATED. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR WELFARE, THAT'S WHY THEY'RE TRYING TO FUCKING KILL YOU.YOU CAN NO MORE CHANGE THIS FUNDAMENTAL IDENTITY OF WAR THAN YOU CAN CONVINCE AND ANT COLONY THE SAME.

POLICING CARES ABOUT RULES AND LAW FOREMOST. POLICING IS ABOUT MAINTAINING ORDER AND PEACE. POLICING DOES *NOT* IMPLY NON-LETHAL MEASURES. OCCUPATIONS ARE AGGRESSIVE FORMS OF POLICE ACTION. POLICE-STATES ARE THE SAME.

(incidentally, this is why I find the term "War Crimes" grossly inappropriate; an oxymoron)

The horrifying weaponry created and employed in both world wars is something we choose not to employ again, because of the long term impacts on our environment and people as a whole.

That is good. It's wonderful.

Similarly, choosing not to eradicate an enemy's people out of convenience and "security" is an ethical step forward.

These are all STEPS AWAY FROM WAR. Not COMBAT. WAR. There is a difference.

This is why I find "Illegal Invasion" silly beyond comparison, because invasions are the first step in warfare (though on reflection policing may involve invasions too, like a SWAT team entering a building. However, that wasn't the context the original post I quoted used it in).

"Combat" and "War" are strongly related, but not implicitly identical.I've seen real life combat occur in my city. Does that make my city a warzone?Of course not! That's ludicrous.

If you still have personal grievances about this and care about it, PM me.

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Do you keep hearing that wooshing noise? Look up next time you do. It's the sounds of a lot of things going over your head.

For starters, this whole obsessions about "war and policing". Hey smart guy! Where did I say policing? Go through all my quotes, not anywhere will you see "police". This is all about war. The act of war.

I notice that while quoting me you left a key passage out. The one that left out my main point. How unfortunate. Let me just re-iterate it for you:

Once you look at this whole "X can never be perfect, so why bother trying to improve it?" argument, if becomes clear just how weak, lazy and, frankly, ridiculous it is. Atrocities of war always happen and people always die (that's part of the package of war) but that doesn't mean it has to be all brutal to all people all the time. Yeah, it would be as naive as fuck to ask all soldiers in the world to line up neat lines, shake hands and then settle it over a tea party, but how many lives, especially civillian lives, do you think have been improved or even saved by the banning the indiscriminate of carpet bombing, napalm and gas? How much more stable and prosperous is the world today for strictly limiting when you can and can't invade a country? Think how much worse life would be in the Middle East if the U.S. had nuked Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 instead of invading.

See this? It's all about war. You know, full-on war. This kind of war:

Nothing 'bout policing. It's all about war. It's saying how even though war is brutal, the brutality of it should be minimized. Going with the whole "war is about killing the other people example". Let's say you've got a group of soldiers wiping out a building full of enemy troops. Is it civil for them to go in and shoot them, or have them fried in an airstrike? No. But is better than them going in there, shooting any civilians they happen to meet, taking the soldiers out, torturing them in various inhumane ways then brutally and viciously killing them in a slow, painful, drawn-out manner? Well? (Please don't take that as a rhetorical question by the way. Judging from your past ability to interpret text, I'm not sure the message will get across if I put the rhetorically.)

It's not about being "policing" or getting your own way. It's about a bad situation that you're trying not to make worse. It's about having a long, painful territory dispute with another country and only going to war when the UN agrees that you can't reach a deal peacefully, instead of having bloody border clashes willy-nilly. It's about telling your soldiers to go into an enemy-occupied city and telling them to keep enemy casualties to a minimum, instead of letting them rape, loot and murder unpunished. Bad things are going to happen, yes, but it's ultimately about stopping it from being worse.

I literally do not know how I could make this any clearer. Bad situation, but don't make it worse. It really is that simple.

Edit (editing in that this is a reply): ^ Yes, I agree fully, though I guess he is right in a marginal sense, seeing as:

There are some ideological sectors of society that have and are, mostly subconciously and unconciously it seems, trying to rebrand the meaning of war to be equal to just killing, in order to accomplish their ideological goal (to reduce warfare). I guess they've managed to confuse Atmos Duality. It's a noble goal, but the wrong means, in the long run the ideological advantage gained by equating war with unrestricted warfare to frighten people has and will continue to cause a fundamentally shallow understanding of many types of organized violence.

The funny thing is if they are successful the meaning of war changes (amidst much bickering) and new words are developed to fill the void, thus returning the situation largely to the status quo (some minor twists and changes would shape the new meanings differently, but would be hard to predict to say the least (and could be useful for either war or pacifism)).

To be honest, in previous discussions, I myself forgot that Bioshock was a Murder Creativity Playset. From the point of having played the game, its easy to forget that pasmids became less potent against enemies, and in particular, I ended up using mainly the crossbow, frag launcher, and anti-personnel pistol rounds (cause the sub-gun chewed up too much ammo for the damage it did). So in that way, yeah its a "shooter". But honestly:

cwDeici34:There are some ideological sectors of society that have and are, mostly subconciously and unconciously it seems, trying to rebrand the meaning of war to be equal to just killing, in order to accomplish their ideological goal (to reduce warfare). I guess they've managed to confuse Atmos Duality. It's a noble goal, but the wrong means, in the long run the ideological advantage gained by equating war with unrestricted warfare to frighten people has and will continue to cause a fundamentally shallow understanding of many types of organized violence.

The funny thing is if they are successful the meaning of war changes (amidst much bickering) and new words are developed to fill the void, thus returning the situation largely to the status quo (some minor twists and changes would shape the new meanings differently, but would be hard to predict to say the least (and could be useful for either war or pacifism)).

Y'know, you can always quote me. I don't often go off into rants like this. Just when people say silly things.

cwDeici34:There are some ideological sectors of society that have and are, mostly subconciously and unconciously it seems, trying to rebrand the meaning of war to be equal to just killing, in order to accomplish their ideological goal (to reduce warfare). I guess they've managed to confuse Atmos Duality. It's a noble goal, but the wrong means, in the long run the ideological advantage gained by equating war with unrestricted warfare to frighten people has and will continue to cause a fundamentally shallow understanding of many types of organized violence.

The funny thing is if they are successful the meaning of war changes (amidst much bickering) and new words are developed to fill the void, thus returning the situation largely to the status quo (some minor twists and changes would shape the new meanings differently, but would be hard to predict to say the least (and could be useful for either war or pacifism)).

Y'know, you can always quote me. I don't often go off into rants like this. Just when people say silly things.

Oh, I'm sorry. :) I just find it more visually efficient not to quote if I'm responding to the post directly above, my bad (I should've added a - or ^ tag), plus that I wasn't actually disagreeing with you at all, simply trying expound on the margins of the word/term's meaning for fun. ^^

---

Anyway, apropos linguistics, while I partly agree with Yahtzee (I like BF with healthbars and good teamplay) he'd have more luck with a less derogatory name for MMS.

Spunkgargleweewee is funny, but it'll never catch on except with a few people, if Yahtzee found a subtly, but catchy way of deriding MMSs he might be able to affect consumer/gamer opinion more.

There are some ideological sectors of society that have and are, mostly subconciously and unconciously it seems, trying to rebrand the meaning of war to be equal to just killing, in order to accomplish their ideological goal (to reduce warfare). I guess they've managed to confuse Atmos Duality. It's a noble goal, but the wrong means, in the long run the ideological advantage gained by equating war with unrestricted warfare to frighten people has and will continue to cause a fundamentally shallow understanding of many types of organized violence.

Conversely, equating war with "combat" only undermines the nature of combat and creates ambiguity.

Or the fact that Colonial Europe tried that before, only to end with World War 1.

The funny thing is if they are successful the meaning of war changes (amidst much bickering) and new words are developed to fill the void, thus returning the situation largely to the status quo (some minor twists and changes would shape the new meanings differently, but would be hard to predict to say the least (and could be useful for either war or pacifism)).

Much less funny is going the opposite route and treating everything as war.

"War on Terror!"Yes! We declared war on an intangible, ambiguous concept!

Oh shit, it already happened...Which, incidentally, contradicts the definition (in context) of that dictionary attack you used earlier.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you haven't played that mission. You play as part of a small team attacking a major pirate outpost on the Somali coast. While their weapons aren't as sophisticated as yours, they outnumber you by a significant margin. They have automatic weapons, RPGs, and LMG emplacements. They are dug in defensive positions and you are on the move. I got killed a number of times playing through that level. The "threat" felt as credible as it does in any other game.

If you take a "big-picture" view, yes, they are dwarfed by the theoretical might of the US military, but in the particular tactical situation, that's irrelevant. It's like saying the enemies in Arkham Asylum aren't a credible threat because they're just muscled-up inmates and you're the goddam Batman.

Well, no I haven't, but it does ring something like Mogadishu again, maybe not.

jounihat:Doom 3 is underrated. It's not a classic, but it's a nice mix of original Doom and System Shock 2.

Excuse me? How exactly is Doom 3 even remotely similar to System Shock 2? Because it has audio logs?

Audio logs and low ammo. The latter one gave me most of that SS2 feel. Maybe "mix" was a little too much though, because it's still 90% Doom and 10% SS2. SS2 is the best game ever, so nothing can compare to it, but it's obvious that id tried to borrow some of the stuff to Doom 3, like they tried to borrow Borderlands when they made Rage.

And yes, Bioshock was dog poo, but I didn't like Deus Ex either. It was too easy, so your choices didn't really matter. I finished SS2 with hard difficulty, and after the ending I wanted to throw the CD under a truck. I have tried to play the game again, but it hurts too much, I just can't do it anymore. The only game that has given me even remotely similar feelings is Demon's Souls. That is also a Game with a capital G, but in a different way than SS2.

Eric Staples:Another modern shooter, another time we get to hear Yahtzee tell us how much he hates chest high walls, regenerative health, ect. This guy's reviews are more repetitive than the games he's ragging on.

When the industry stops putting them into every single game regardless or not if it is needed, I have a feeling he'll stop.

Neiloken:ok since ol ZP is making a comparison between COD and real shooters (thank ronswanson) i now call he must play Halo 4... After years of being subjected to "i'll just sit here and wait for my team to kill everything" shooters I decided to start Halo4 on heroic (used to finish every halo on legendary) and oh crikey did I get my cheeks served to me on a silver platter...

Being el solo once more has proven to be very difficult and VERY exciting!! Ok mind I've only played the first few missions but I have high hopes this game will continue kicking my ass...

Oh ya, and to put the whole xbox vs ps3 on graphics thing to rest. All u PS fanboys, organize an HDTV, Xbox 360 Slim, and Halo 4... it is honestly prettier than anything I've ever seen on a screen in my entire life...

Peace x 3

It's funny. I remember a time, not all that long ago before Call of Duty was king, that people blamed Halo for pretty much everything that was wrong with 'modern' shooters, for introducing such things as the two weapon limit, and in the case of Halo 2, Xbox LIVE.

Now, it almost seems like Halo stands as one of the last bastions against everything that people dislike about 'modern' shooters, with no iron sights, no chest high walls, interesting and varied sci-fi environments, lots of different enemy types and so on and so forth.

Neiloken:ok since ol ZP is making a comparison between COD and real shooters (thank ronswanson) i now call he must play Halo 4... After years of being subjected to "i'll just sit here and wait for my team to kill everything" shooters I decided to start Halo4 on heroic (used to finish every halo on legendary) and oh crikey did I get my cheeks served to me on a silver platter...

Being el solo once more has proven to be very difficult and VERY exciting!! Ok mind I've only played the first few missions but I have high hopes this game will continue kicking my ass...

Oh ya, and to put the whole xbox vs ps3 on graphics thing to rest. All u PS fanboys, organize an HDTV, Xbox 360 Slim, and Halo 4... it is honestly prettier than anything I've ever seen on a screen in my entire life...

Peace x 3

It's funny. I remember a time, not all that long ago before Call of Duty was king, that people blamed Halo for pretty much everything that was wrong with 'modern' shooters, for introducing such things as the two weapon limit, and in the case of Halo 2, Xbox LIVE.

Now, it almost seems like Halo stands as one of the last bastions against everything that people dislike about 'modern' shooters, with no iron sights, no chest high walls, interesting and varied sci-fi environments, lots of different enemy types and so on and so forth.

In the land of the blind, one-eye rules.

A less cynical explanation would be that innovation always faces opposition, and say what you will about Halo: it sure innovated a lot. Things that are by now taken for granted, while we have moved on to deride the latest generation of gameplay fashion while dreaming rose-coloured dreams about the last one.

JPArbiter:can I PLEASE get a transcript for everything from "you just do not like shooters." onward?

Well, let me have a shot...

"Oh you ignorant little bastards!Shove your balls up your ass and clench yourself castrated.I was into shooters while you were still sucking on Wii-motes, you cover-loving, health-regenerating, murder come-latelys.You don't even know what a shooter is!A shooter is fast paced, circle strafing, wits about you, rocket jumping, last crap of health, toodly fuck pies organic excitement in a fancy hat.

Are we supposed to just ignore the sentence that started this pointless discussion now that we've established that he does occasionally enjoy multiplayer so we have to assume he plays multiplayer? You're changing the subject and you wont even admit that you're changing the subject. I am done discussing this so there's no need to reply.

Just a heads up if you want to be a far more respectable debater try not to end every post with an obvious insult to your opponent. It degrades the entire post.

I said I am done discussing this and if the subject "this" we are referring to is people who bring up a subject then aren't respectful enough to stay on subject despite being urged to do so then call the other part disrespectful for pointing the fact, then yes, I did break my word. Now go on and have a wonderful day and pride yourself for outsmarting me, sir.

I said I am done discussing this and if the subject "this" we are referring to is people who bring up a subject then aren't respectful enough to stay on subject despite being urged to do so then call the other part disrespectful for pointing the fact, then yes, I did break my word. Now go on and have a wonderful day and pride yourself for outsmarting me, sir.

You know, that whole giant robot section sounds like something that would appear in a non-SGWW game, from the other side, and it actually has. Striders and Hunters from Half-Life spring to mind, or those big mechs that popped up once in a while in FEAR. Bascially, in Warfighter, you play the bad guy from a good shooter. There's nothing wrong with playing the villain for a change (Prototype and the Saints Row games proved that pretty handily), but it just feels... off, somehow, if the game still pretends you're the hero.

While Yahtzee's proposed name of spunkgargleweewee for this new subgenre is funny as hell, I reckon a more serious-sounding name would be FPRS - First Person Rail Shooter. Because deep down, that's what the likes of Modern Warfare, MOH and Battlefield have become. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised that EA and Activision haven't tried to make arcade rail-shooter spinoffs of their respective franchises.

EDIT: It just dawned on me that the "first person" part of that description is rather redundant, as rail shooters are first person by nature. Spunkgargleweewee games ARE nothing more than tarted-up rail shooters, and shit ones at that.

Neiloken:ok since ol ZP is making a comparison between COD and real shooters (thank ronswanson) i now call he must play Halo 4... After years of being subjected to "i'll just sit here and wait for my team to kill everything" shooters I decided to start Halo4 on heroic (used to finish every halo on legendary) and oh crikey did I get my cheeks served to me on a silver platter...

Being el solo once more has proven to be very difficult and VERY exciting!! Ok mind I've only played the first few missions but I have high hopes this game will continue kicking my ass...

Oh ya, and to put the whole xbox vs ps3 on graphics thing to rest. All u PS fanboys, organize an HDTV, Xbox 360 Slim, and Halo 4... it is honestly prettier than anything I've ever seen on a screen in my entire life...

Peace x 3

It's funny. I remember a time, not all that long ago before Call of Duty was king, that people blamed Halo for pretty much everything that was wrong with 'modern' shooters, for introducing such things as the two weapon limit, and in the case of Halo 2, Xbox LIVE.

Now, it almost seems like Halo stands as one of the last bastions against everything that people dislike about 'modern' shooters, with no iron sights, no chest high walls, interesting and varied sci-fi environments, lots of different enemy types and so on and so forth.

In the land of the blind, one-eye rules.

A less cynical explanation would be that innovation always faces opposition, and say what you will about Halo: it sure innovated a lot. Things that are by now taken for granted, while we have moved on to deride the latest generation of gameplay fashion while dreaming rose-coloured dreams about the last one.

... ok, maybe I'm not sure whether that was any less cynical.

I and many others still blame Halo, as it is the drunken grandfather to COD MOH BF, etc. Just because people don't comment on it much anymore doesn't make it any less true. Innovation implies better freedom of game-play and creativity. The fact of the matter is, Halo and the rest "innovated" restrictions. Less freedom. Less weapons and regenerating health? Means players have to spend more time hunting down new weapons, or hide to regenerate health to extend game play. Cheap ploys to hide how short and terrible those games truly are.

Someone already pointed out to our esteemed Mr. Croshaw that "warfighter" is a multipurpose Pentagon buzzword, right? Yes? Okay, good. Keep up the good work, Escapisters.

That aside, I had to restrain myself from jumping on top of a table and pumping my fist in the air whilst shouting incoherently when he got to his "son, I wasdshooters as on the quakenet" rant towards the end. THIS is why I respect your reviews, Yahtzee. Right frigging on.